Despite poll tie, most predict Obama win

A majority of voters say they think Barack Obama will win Tuesday's U.S. presidential election, a United Press International poll indicated. The perception was in Obama's favor over Republican rival Mitt Romney even though UPI-CVoter voter preference polls indicate the two are in a dead heat, results released Monday indicated. In a UPI-CVoter poll released Saturday, Obama was preferred by 49 percent of the voters while 48 percent said they back Romney. Because of the 4.5 percentage point margin of error, results indicate the two are statistically tied. In perception, however Obama leads Romney by double digits, meaning "many Republican voters, too, believe Obama would win," CVoter pollster Yashwant Deshmukh said. In 11 states UPI-CVoter considers battleground states, voter perception favors Obama over Romney, 50 percent to 39 percent, regardless of who voters said they support. UPI-CVoter battleground states include Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin. Of those 11 toss-up states, voters in seven states said they believed Obama would handily defeat Romney, including Ohio, where Obama leads Romney 48 percent to 47 percent in the voter preference poll, but is ahead 49 percent to 42 percent in voters' perception. In Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire, voters said they thought Romney would win the presidency. Results are based on nationwide telephone interviews with 3,633 likely voters conducted Oct. 15-31. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.